


Would you like to stay for dinner? (would you like to stay forever?)

by seekingsquake



Category: Naruto
Genre: Discord: Umino Hours, Found Family, Gen, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Canon, Umino Hours Winter Bingo, brief and vague mentions of a dead cat, very vague implications of child abuse at the orphanage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28137627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: “Hey,” he says, as gently as he can manage while still making sure the kid hears him over his screaming. “Are you hungry?”Naruto, who had been flailing around and wailing his little head off, freezes. He looks up at Iruka, and his eyes are blue, blue, blue. There’s a gap between his two front teeth. There’s dirt on his face and under his fingernails. Iruka’s heart keeps panging, and he wants to close his eyes again, to block it out.Instead, he forces himself to look.“I said, are you hungry?”Iruka's always had a soft spot for strays. He used to be one, after all.
Relationships: Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 8
Kudos: 56
Collections: The Umino Hours Winter Bingo 2020





	Would you like to stay for dinner? (would you like to stay forever?)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the lovely [Enby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enby0angel) for giving this a quick beta read!

It’s the worst night to have left his umbrella at home.

The precipitation that’s coming down is somewhere between snow and rain, falling in globs and creating slushy puddles in the street and under gutters. It’s not even that cold, but the windchill is enough to make Iruka dread his walk home. He tugs his scarf tightly around his face and pulls his hat almost over his eyes, then ventures out of the academy with his hands fisted in his pockets and satchel pulled close to his body.

No one else is on the streets, even though it’s not late yet, and it’s eerie. The village is usually bustling at all times of day, but the weather has been unusually atrocious as of late, so anyone who can get away with staying indoors has been. Takoyaki and yakitori stands are closed, the produce market hasn’t run for days, and even some of the gift shops and novelty stores have ceased business for the time being. The main street has turned into a wind tunnel, so Iruka ducks into an alley behind a curry restaurant. The back roads are tighter and more covered, so hopefully, it will be an easier journey if he stays travelling that way.

He makes it four blocks before the clang of a garbage can makes Iruka pause. One of the bins behind Ichiraku Ramen is on its side and rolling back and forth gently, and Iruka has to close his eyes against the feeling of his heart panging in his chest. It’s probably a cat rummaging for a meal and a dry place to sleep, and Iruka knows that other people might let that go, but...

The winter after his parents died, he found a cat frozen to death behind the orphanage, and sometimes he still has nightmares about that.

Quietly, so quietly, he sneaks up on the garbage can and then jerks back into an upright position. His plan is to reach in and grab the cat by the scruff, bundling it tightly against his chest in his coat in an attempt to limit the movements of its limbs and claws. But the screeching that meets him when he tips the can up isn’t that of a cat.

It’s a boy, wailing.

It’s  _ the  _ boy.

Part of Iruka is wailing, too. This boy... There are too many of Iruka’s emotions tangled up in the very existence of this boy. But Uzumaki Naruto is only eight years old. He is scrawny, not dressed appropriately for the temperature or the dampness, and is digging around in the garbage. 

Iruka thinks of that cat, frozen solid and dead, eyes wide open. Iruka thinks of himself, ten years old, alone and hungry and—

“Hey,” he says, as gently as he can manage while still making sure the kid hears him over his screaming. “Are you hungry?”

Naruto, who had been flailing around and wailing his little head off, freezes. He looks up at Iruka, and his eyes are blue, blue, blue. There’s a gap between his two front teeth. There’s dirt on his face and under his fingernails. Iruka’s heart keeps panging, and he wants to close his eyes again, to block it out. 

Instead, he forces himself to look.

“I said, are you hungry?”

Hesitantly, suspiciously, Naruto nods. Iruka nods also, takes a deep breath, then says, “Come with me.” He ducks into the narrow space between Ichiraku’s and the kitchen goods store beside it and walks to the restaurant’s front, listening to make sure that Naruto is following. Then he pops into Ichiraku’s and calls out, snagging Naruto under the arms and swinging him up onto a stool at the counter. “Teuchi!”

When Teuchi ambles out from the back, he greets Iruka with a smile but eyes Naruto warily. “What can I do for you, kid?”

“Two specials, please,” Iruka says, sitting on the stool beside Naruto. He, too, eyes Naruto warily before adding, “with extra everything.”

They eat together in silence, the wind howling just outside and Naruto spilling broth all over himself. Iruka wipes Naruto’s face and dabs at the wet spots on his shirt, then pays for the food. “You can come home with me,” he says quietly, already planning the best way to get Naruto to his apartment while keeping him warm. 

Naruto blinks at him a couple of times before slowly shaking his head, his lip quivering. “If I don’t go back to the orphanage, I get in trouble at breakfast.”

Helplessness washes over Iruka as he remembers what breakfast-time punishments were like. But what else can he do? “I’ll walk you there, then.”

Naruto just shakes his head again. “Thanks, Mister,” he mumbles, then bolts out into the night and scampers off down the street, scurrying like a mouse looking for a new place to hide. 

❆❆❆

Iruka should stop grading papers at Ichiraku’s counter because he keeps getting droplets of broth on everything, but it’s cold enough outside that he’s waiting for the wind to at least die down. As the years pass, the winters get harder; last autumn, Teuchi installed glass doors to replace the curtains that had hung from Ichiraku Ramen’s entrance for decades. But maybe it’s not just the weather. Iruka’s been finding that the older he gets, the harder it is to stay warm. 

A gust of wind rushes inside as the door swings open and a bell chimes, and then there’s a booming, excited voice bellowing, “Iruka-sensei!”

Iruka looks and is immediately wrapped up in a bone-crushing hug. “Naruto,” he wheezes, a hand coming up to clutch the fabric of Naruto’s orange jacket.

“Two specials, Teuchi, please!” Naruto calls, releasing Iruka and pulling up a stool beside him. He studies Iruka with serious eyes before adding, “With extra everything!”

“Where have you been hiding, sensei, hmm? I feel like I haven’t seen you in aaaaages,” Naruto whines, and Iruka bites back a smile. 

“I’m always where I always am,” Iruka responds, shuffling his paperwork into his satchel and turning his full attention to Naruto. “What about you? I ran into Sakura the other day, and she said you haven’t even been in the village for quite a while.”

They eat as they catch up with each other, and Iruka finally feels warm enough to risk heading home. He pulls out enough money to pay for both himself and Naruto and then begins collecting his bag and scarf. He’s stopped by Naruto, pushing the money back at him across the counter and replacing it with a wad of bills from his wallet. “Do you remember the first time we ate here together? I’m the same age now as you were back then.”

Naruto, eighteen and taller than Iruka, isn’t a little boy anymore. He’s still reasonably spindly, but he’s not malnourished anymore. And his eyes are still blue, blue, blue. “That’s true, isn’t it? We’ve grown into some fine young men.”

They both laugh when Teuchi snorts from behind the counter, then Iruka wraps his scarf around Naruto’s neck. “Go on, go find your friends. I’m sure you’re dying to see everyone.”

“Let me walk you home first,” Naruto says quietly, his eyes locked on Iruka. “I’ll catch everyone else in a bit.”

“But—”

“I missed you, too, you know?”

Inexplicably, Iruka thinks of a cat, curled up at the foot of a bed, purring. He shakes his head, ruffles Naruto’s hair affectionately, and mutters, “Fine. C’mon, then.”

Naruto doesn’t run ahead like he used to. They walk side by side up the street, the wind buffering against them, shoulder to shoulder all the way to Iruka’s apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece fills the "holiday food" square on my bingo board, even though I skipped out on the "holiday" part :P


End file.
